


A better man might

by lowriseflare, threeguesses



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, First Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 02:30:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8310262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowriseflare/pseuds/lowriseflare, https://archiveofourown.org/users/threeguesses/pseuds/threeguesses
Summary: The day Mike realizes he’s actively looking for Baker’s ass in the dugout is the day he decides he should probably stop slapping it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> WELL, WE SURE ARE UP THE RIVER WITH THIS ONE. Title is Bob Hicok, _The Truth About Love_ , because team threelowriseguessflares loves a title suite.

The day Mike realizes he’s actively looking for Baker’s ass in the dugout is the day he decides he should probably stop slapping it.

It’s high summer when it happens, hot in San Diego. Zimmerman hits a double, and Mike just barely makes it home. He’s sweating like all hell when he hoofs it back to the bench, neck damp and knees singing. Baker’s leaning over the wall like always, ready with a high five and a grin. “Gotta work on your conditioning,” she says. “I’ve seen faster shuffling out of grandmas.”

Well. Mike is about to give it to her extra hard for that, nice and low on her ass so she really feels it—because he can actually do that with her, the perks of having a teammate with no balls—only shit, wait, no. Mike’s already slapped two asses on the way over here, Blip and Shrek, and he sure wasn’t thinking about _hand_ placement.

He freezes in place for one fraction of a second, arm aloft. Then he punches Baker in the bicep and moves the hell along. When he flops onto the bench next to Hernandez he can see she’s turned to look at him, her expression curious and ever-so-slightly wary underneath the brim of her ballcap. Mike takes a long time retying his cleat.

She’s a fucking ballplayer, he reminds himself. She’s his _rookie_.

He stops after that. No more ass slaps for Baker, no siree, nothing but good old-fashioned family-friendly high fives and shoulder slaps, maybe the odd back clap thrown in for variety. Once he tries for a fist bump and Ginny looks at him like he crapped his pants. “God, you're white,” she says, and for no reason at all Mike blushes.

He thinks it's working, though. He thinks he got away with it. She's noticed, sure, and sometimes she looks back at him questioningly after he walks by, but he's pretty sure she thinks he stopped out of respect. Mike’s pretty sure that's why he stopped too, albeit in a more roundabout way.

Only then, two weeks into the new routine, Baker corners him in the bowels of Wrigley Field and asks him if he's mad at her.

Mike stares at her for a second in horror. Then he plays dumb. “Am I _what_?” he asks, shoving two pieces of gum in his mouth at once. “I’m not a teenage girl, Baker. If I was _mad_ at you, you’d know it. Why would I be mad at you?”

Ginny shrugs. “You know why,” she says, plucking at the corner of her lip.

Of course he knows why, but fuck him if he’s going to be the one to say it. “I really don’t.”

That irritates her. “You were treating me the same as everybody else after the beanball thing,” she says, all injured expression and wide, sulky mouth. “And now you’re not again. I wanna know why.”

“Baker.” Mike sighs. “Drop the rock, okay? I’m not mad at you. You want to wear best friends necklaces and paint each other’s toenails, by all means, we can do that. But first we’ve got a game to win, so—”

“Don’t do that,” she snaps, dark eyes and a flash of temper. “I mean it, Lawson. I thought we were honest with each other.”

Mike has no idea where she got that idea, actually. “We’re teammates,” he tells her carefully. “I’m treating you like a teammate.”

“No, Lawson, you aren’t,” Ginny says, and Mike can actually see the moment where she decides to come right out and say it. “Whatever happened to ‘I slaps asses’, huh? Thought you slapped all the asses, Mike. Thought that was your ‘thing’.” She makes air quotes around the last word, her jaw squared and set.

Mike scrubs a hand over his face. “Yeah, well,” he says, but there’s nowhere to go, no way out of this godawful conversation. “Thought you didn’t like it.”

“Since when do you care what I like?” Baker frowns, dimple popping unhappily. “Seriously, what did I _do_?”

Jesus fuck, you’d think he picked her last for dodgeball. Frankly this is exactly why they don’t put girls in the MLB. “You didn’t do anything, Baker,” he snaps. He means to put the emphasis on _anything_ but it comes out on _you_ , instead—the implication being, of course, that the fault here is—

Well, Mike guesses. The fault here _is_.

“Okay,” Baker says slowly, a flash of wet pink tongue at the corner of her mouth. “So—”

“So nothing,” he interrupts, but it’s out there now, plain as the number on his jersey, and he can tell from Baker’s face that she got the gist. Fuck, Mike can’t believe himself. “You need to get changed.”

“So do you,” Ginny says, and her voice is very, very calm. “Can we talk about this?”

“Nothing to talk about.” God, the way she’s looking at him. Mike has seen that look on other women’s faces before, most recently on Rachel’s after he spilled his guts in their living room with their wedding album clutched in his hands. Ginny Baker is too damn young to be looking at him like that. “Rookie,” he says, and here is where he can really feel it getting away from him, his voice gone hard and mulish with embarrassment. “We are not discussing this. I am your captain. We gotta dress.”

Baker throws up her hands. “You know what, Lawson, fine, have it your way. I’m not the one with a problem here.”

And that, thinks Mike, is a goddamn fact.

They dress. They hit the field. They don't speak. Instead Mike squats in place while Baker throws her thirty-odd warm-up pitches, watching her go through her repertoire with a stone cold poker face. Mike would talk to her—Mike is supposed to talk to her, actually, it is literally his fucking job—but every piece of coaching he wants to give suddenly feels sexual. _A little higher. Focus on my hand. Don't force it._ He keeps his trap shut, concentrates on stretching out his knees.

“All good?” he asks after Baker throws her thirty-fifth pitch.

For a second she just looks at him. “All good.”

But it's not all good, because Mike has a horrible fucking game. Mike hates having a horrible game as a catcher, because to casual fans it looks like pitcher is the one fucking up. All they see is Baker’s mid-80s fastball getting hit out of the park, not the fact that Mike read the batter wrong and Ginny respected his call. All game long Ginny respects his calls, throwing a screwball when he calls for a screwball and a curve when he calls for a curve, and all game long she gets hit.

At the bottom of the sixth, Mike calls time and stalks out to the mound. “Stop it,” he says tightly. He can barely look at her. “I don’t have it today, okay? If your gut’s telling you to throw a different pitch, do it.”

Baker balks. “Lawson,” she hisses, panic written all over her face like she thinks he’s out to abandon her on the beaches of fucking Normandy. “Come on.” Then, glove over her mouth, dark eyes urgent: “ _Mike_.”

“Do it,” he tells her roughly, and turns back the way he came.

She does it. Baker flies more or less blind for the rest of that inning and the next one; Al pulls her out after the seventh, sends Miller to the mound to clean up. They skate by with the win, smile for the cameras, and completely ignore each other in the clubhouse.

By the time they get back to the hotel all Mike wants is a burger from room service and never to talk to anyone for the rest of his natural life, but Blip catches him in the lobby and reminds him that Evelyn’s in town tonight. She’s got cousins in Chicago, likes to bring the boys for the weekend when they’re out here. “Come on,” Blip says when Mike tries to use his back as an excuse to beg off. “It makes her think I’m cool and popular when I get the whole team to come out.”

“You are neither of those things,” Mike says, but he agrees anyway. Possibly he’s a masochist.

Baker comes too, of course, piling into a different Uber than Mike; he can just barely spot her through the throng of athleisure and bad cologne, her hair loose and springy as she ducks into the car after Blip. She's still wearing her post-game clothes. Mike beats them to the bar, a swanky place Evelyn picked out with leather banquettes and a view of Millennium Park. For a second he wonders how Baker and her Nike athletic gear are going to get in before telling himself firmly it isn't his problem.

It’s not a problem for Baker, either: she breezes through the door in her leggings and v-neck t-shirt, stopping once to take a selfie with the beefy bald security guard. Mike thinks it must get fucking exhausting, being the center of attention like that—even at the height of his popularity he had it this bad—but you’d never know it from the easy way she’s carrying herself, the white half moon of her smile.

She catches his eye for a second, unreadable. He looks away first.

Mike sits sprawled in a booth for most of the night, half-listening to Shrek recount the long, sad tale of a Hooters waitress from Tallahassee who he thinks might be his soulmate, half-watching Baker do laps around the bar. She’s like a kid on a playground, all over the place, dancing with Evelyn and the guys, doing a shot with Miller. They’re starting to warm to her, Mike notes with some satisfaction. The last thing she needs is some fat fuck like him messing it up because he can't keep his eye on the ball.

So Mike doesn’t mess it up. He watches her just closely enough to make sure they aren’t in the same place at the same time, drinks Chicago’s soupy craft beers, and minds his own damn business. He’s doing a great job of it, too, two solid hours of careful avoidance and counting. He’s beginning to think this whole thing might just blow over.

Not so much: at quarter-to-midnight, he bellies up to the bar after taking a leak and Baker appears out of nowhere, muscling through the throng of people to stand by his elbow.

“They’ll serve me,” she announces, lifting her hair off her face with one hand. “Here, move.”

Mike—who hadn't actually been struggling to get served, thank you—steps back so she can insinuate herself between him and the bar. Her arm brushes against his as they slide by each other, the skin warm and slightly damp. _You've been legal for two years,_ Mike thinks, and promptly wants to unhook his brain stem from his body.

“What you having?” Ginny asks. Mike gives her his beer order and tries to back away, but people are lining up at the bar three deep and if he disappears into the crowd he’ll stiff Baker with the check. He’s not sure what she’s after here, if this is a peace-offering or if she’s come to yell at him or if it’s something else entirely. 

“Here,” Baker says when their beers arrive, passing Mike’s bottle back over her shoulder; his fingers brush against hers on the label as he takes it, chilly in the sweaty air. He’s digging in his pocket for some cash when she glances behind her, takes a giant step back—

and grinds her perfect, pear shaped ass right up against his fucking dick.

Mike freezes. The bar is crowded enough that it could be an accident, except for the part where Ginny Baker has never done anything by accident in her entire life. “ _Baker_ ,” he says, low and quiet into her temple.

Ginny raises her eyebrows like a challenge, and promptly walks the hell away.

Fuck. Mike feels something akin to panic creeping over him, his knee joints turning to liquid. He can’t tell if he’s being flirted with or being mocked, although if someone put a gun to his head and made him guess he’d say Ginny Baker isn’t the kind of girl who’d pull the latter, which means—

_Fuck_.

Before Mike knows what he’s doing, he’s striding over to where she’s chatting to Blip and catching her by the arm.

“Can I talk to you a second?” he asks, trying to keep his voice even. Blip looks surprised, and Baker is staring at him like he grew a second fucking head, but Mike, whose heart might be about to beat itself right out of his body, can’t bring himself to care.

“Sure,” Ginny says, pasting on a smile. “Game strategy,” she adds to Blip, which makes exactly zero sense, but Mike is already dragging her away toward the rooftop lounge and trying to disappear them into the crowd, only of course you can’t do that when you’re Ginny-fucking-Baker, the only woman in this whole bar wearing Nike Flyknits and a top made out of a sweat-wicking fabric. Her wrist is very warm under his hand. Finally he stops next to a potted tree and turns to face her.

“Baker,” he says, and he tries to be calm, he does, “what in the wide world of fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Don't you _ever_ pull that shit on me again,” Ginny snaps, wrenching her wrist away from him. “What the hell is wrong with you, Lawson?”

Mike is so shocked he momentarily forgets she's a brand new call up who's got no business talking to her captain that way. “Wait a second,” he says. “ _You’re_ mad at _me_?”

“Of course I’m mad at you!” Ginny’s eyes are hot coals. “Are you kidding me? You just bailed and left me to clean up your damn mess out there today, Mike. What the hell?”

Mike scrubs a hand through his beard. “You’re right,” he concedes. “And I’m sorry. But that doesn’t have anything to do with—”

“I trust you,” she interrupts. “Do you understand that?”

Jesus Christ, it's the worst thing she could possibly say to him. “You shouldn't,” he tells her flatly. “I mean it, Baker—”

“ _No_ ,” Ginny insists. “That’s what I’m talking about. I _trust_ you.”

Mike can’t take it. “Stop it,” he hisses. “Just stop it. Christ, Baker, that’s completely beside the—”

“No, see, it _is_ the point.” She's stepped up into his space now, her jaw clenched like she’s on the mound. “The other thing doesn't matter, okay? Seriously. I don't care if you secretly want to grope me and you're embarrassed about it, that’s fine, that's your business. I care that you treat me like a ballplayer.”

Mike opens his mouth. Closes it. “Baker,” he starts. There is absolutely nothing left in his brain. He has officially become one of those guys, like the Cardinals first baseman who won’t stop calling her sweetheart or Al talking about how pretty she is on national television—only worse. Way, _way_ fucking worse. “You are a ballplayer,” he says helplessly. “Fuck, Baker, I’m sorry. You’re a ballplayer and I’ll treat you like one.”

“Good.” Ginny’s shoulders relax as she drops the horrific eye-contact they’ve been holding, looking out at the Chicago skyline instead. When her gaze lands on Mike again, her expression is just slightly sly. “That was it, right?” she says. “You wanted to smack my ass in a different context or something?”

Holy _fuck_. “No,” Mike says, panicking. What the fuck, they were fixing this. “No, Baker, come on, I wouldn't have—”

“No, I know,” she says quietly, and Mike finally realizes from her body language and bitten lip that she's no longer scolding him. “But you wanted to.”

Mike gapes at her for a moment. “What do you want me to say?” he asks finally, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Am I attracted to you? Of course I’m attracted to you. Have you looked in the mirror lately? Everybody is attracted to you.”

He’s trying to couch it in the broadest, most general terms possible, but Ginny’s smile, when it comes, feels decidedly specific. “Okay,” she says, and Mike has no idea how she’s managing to sound so preternaturally calm about this. “I’m attracted to you, too.”

Mike feels a trap door open deep inside him, the sensation of something tumbling though. “Well, that we knew,” he manages, trying desperately to regain the upper hand here. “Poster, etcetera.”

“I didn’t have your stupid poster,” Baker says. But she’s taking a step closer now, right up into his space, and Jesus Christ there are at least a hundred other people on this patio. This cannot be happening here. This can’t be happening at _all_ , Mike reminds himself, this is _not_ happening, but it especially can’t be happening in the middle of—

“Do you want to leave?” Ginny asks.

Sweet fucking Christ. “Move back,” Mike says. When she doesn’t go fast enough, he wraps both hands around her waist and physically moves her. Ginny looks surprised for a second, then she grins.

“So, yes?” she asks. And fuck, okay, they definitely, definitely need to get out of here, because the way she's smiling at him is too obvious, anyone in the world could figure this out. It is the most grown-up expression Mike has ever seen on her face.

“Yeah,” he says, and dear God, she is _twenty-three years old_. “Okay.”

He tells himself they’re not going to do anything, that they’re just going to leave and continue this conversation in a more appropriate location, but he doesn’t believe the lie even as he’s selling it to himself. Baker leads the way to the cab stand, flagging one down and sliding in ahead of him to give the driver the address of the hotel. Mike climbs in after her, trying like all hell to school his face into a normal fucking expression.

Ginny glances at him and raises her eyebrows. “Hey,” she says quietly, nodding her chin at him like they're out on the pitch. Then she reaches over and runs the tip of her finger over his wrist.

Fuck. Mike sucks in a deep, ragged breath, his stomach muscles clenching like the nerve-endings in his arm are wired directly to his dick. Baker smirks, then turns away to look out the window, her finger drawing loops over his skin. After a minute she flips his hand over to trace his lifeline. By the time they turn into the hotel, Mike’s got a massive fucking hard-on and lungs full of sand, like for all his body's concerned he's never been touched by a woman before in his entire life. He’s thirty-six years old, for fuck’s sake. He was _married_.

Enough is enough. As the cab swings into the large circular drive in front of the Marriott, Mike closes his fist around her index finger and squeezes once, hard and intentional. Baker inhales sharply into the silence. Mike feels darkly pleased with himself until he remembers he’s not actually supposed to be trying to turn her on.

The hotel lobby is bright and unforgiving, like stepping out of the darkness into the all-seeing eye of God. Ginny seems unconcerned: “What’s your floor?” she asks when they get to the elevator bay, jabbing at the call button with her thumb. Mike takes a long, steadying breath.

“Baker,” he starts, but before he can say anything wise or sage or remotely useful, her eyes drop pointedly to his crotch. “Christ, okay. Fifteen.”

“Thought so,” she says, grinning. Mike just barely stops himself from running a thumb over her dimple. He guesses this is really happening, then. He really is going to take his rookie pitcher back to his hotel room, roll down her athletic leggings, and—

Jesus.

Ginny leads the way out of the elevator, waltzing backwards down the hallway so she can watch him. “Key,” she says imperiously when they get to Mike’s door. Mike gives it to her, watching as she slides it in and the little green light flickers on.

He’s expecting her to take charge inside too—is expecting her to run this whole thing, in truth, since he’s pretty sure he left his brain back at the bar—but instead she takes two big steps into the room and pivots to face him, crossing her arms expectantly.

Mike laughs. “Well, here we are.”

Ginny doesn’t budge. “Here we are,” she echoes, raising her eyebrows.

Finally Mike gets it. “Oh, okay,” he says quietly. He takes a step closer and rests his palms lightly against her waist. “What, Baker, need the man to make the first move for you? That it?” Ginny rolls her eyes, but she also doesn’t step away. Mike swallows hard. “This is a bad idea.”

Ginny wrinkles her nose. “You started it,” she says, sounding for all the world like a person who didn't have her ass up against Mike’s junk less than thirty minutes ago. “We gotta get it out of our systems. It’s interfering with the game.”

Mike finds her hipbones through the fabric of her t-shirt, rubbing them gently. “Oh yeah?” he asks, watching as her eyes flicker closed. “Am I in your system, rookie?”

“Shut up,” Ginny says, but she sounds pleasantly breathless. “I think we know exactly who is in whose system.” She’s got her hands resting up on his shoulders now, tensing and relaxing and tensing one more time. “Do that again,” she adds after a moment.

“What, this?” Mike lifts up the slippery tee-shirt and strokes his thumbs along her waistband, where the skin is smooth and hot and heartbreakingly soft. Ginny makes a quiet sound.

For a second Mike runs through the pros and cons, weighing the horrible game they had today against the possibility of future horrible games if this goes wrong. He thinks about how young Ginny is, wonders what percent of her attraction can be put down to hero worship—thirty? fifty? all of it? Wonders how high that percent can go before he becomes a creep for taking advantage. He thinks about her career, more specifically about what happens to it if this gets out. He thinks about being her captain.

“What?” Ginny asks, frowning. “Problem?”

Mike shakes his head. “Look, Baker,” he starts, and then can't decide which excuse to give her first.

Ginny must reads his face, because her own turns mulish. “What, you need to pop a Viagra first or something?” she asks, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. “Because my trainer says I should avoid secondary exposure to any performance enhancers so I can just—”

Mike laughs. She looks so _pissed_ at him. “No, Baker,” he says, and God, he guesses this is happening, because here he is walking her sulky self backwards until her spine's up against the wall. “I don't need a Viagra.” He ducks his head and opens his mouth against the sharp ridge of her collarbone as he says it, and it only takes a second before Baker relaxes against him, scooping her own hair out of the way to give him room. After another second she pulls him closer by his belt loops, hard enough that Mike stumbles. Ginny grins.

“Just checking,” she says. 

Jesus Christ. Mike braces himself against the wall behind her and presses a thigh hard between her legs, letting his dick grind into her hipbone. Ginny whines.

“That what you wanted to see?” Mike asks, skating a palm down the smooth line of her rib cage. "That what you were wondering about?" Baker tosses her head, rocking her hips hard and bossy into his and shit, Mike hasn’t even kissed her yet. “Come here,” he says exasperatedly, bumping his nose along her jaw until she looks at him. He holds the eye contact for a second, rubbing his thumb across her bottom lip until she smiles.

“What are you—” she starts to ask, but he’s already kissing her, nudging her mouth open with his and licking his way inside. Mike’s a good kisser. More specifically, Mike believes in kissing, believes that it is an essential first step to sleeping with women and therefore a skill worth investing in. If he’s gonna do this thing with Baker, he’s damn well gonna do it properly.

She pulls away after a minute. “Uh,” she says, reaching up to touch her mouth. “Okay. Wow. Hi.”

“Hi,” Mike says quietly, and Baker bursts out laughing.

“Sorry!” she says, holding up her hands. “Shit, I’m sorry, you’re good, you’re good.”

“I’m good?” Mike echoes, easing off the wall to give her some breathing room. 

Ginny grins. “You’re good,” she repeats, one finger creeping into his belt loop again. Her other hand is running up and down his bicep, squeezing in a way that feels distinctly conciliatory. “Good at that, I mean.” She pauses for a second, biting her lip. “I especially liked the part where you said hi to me like we were in a porno and—”

That’s it. Mike grabs her by the waist and hauls her over his shoulder, dumping her unceremoniously on the bed. “Okay, first of all, fuck you. Second of all, you’ve been having sex for what, max five years? Let the professionals handle this, Baker, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“I’m going to _hurt_ myself?” she asks, and the expression on her face is such naked delight that Mike’s breath stops dead in his chest.

“If you’re not careful,” he finishes lamely, reaching for her Nikes.

“Oh, I’ll _be_ careful.” Ginny slides her arms up under the pillows, watching as he works her laces. Mike does her socks too, then presses a thumb against her instep and raises his eyebrows at the sound of her satisfied hum.

Ginny raises hers right back. “The _professionals_ ,” she mutters, flexing her toes against his denim-covered thigh. Mike grabs her hard by the ankle, willing himself not to blush.

“Uh-huh. Up.” He yanks her further down the mattress, hooking her foot over his shoulder and his fingers in the waistband of her athletic tights. Ginny lifts her hips obediently so he can pull them down her legs. She’s got thighs for days, smooth brown skin and hard muscle underneath it.

“What next?” she asks, letting her legs fall open. Her panties are a plain, utilitarian black. “Just, like. In your professional opinion.”  
  
Mike realizes his mouth is open and closes it with a snap. “All right, smartass, take your top off.” He doesn't necessarily mean for it to sound like they’re out on the pitch, but he doesn't necessarily mean for it _not_ to sound like that either.

Baker grins and obeys, standing right up on the bed to do it. She’s got a Nike sports bra on underneath, her breasts strapped-down and streamlined. Mike whistles.

“Do you have an endorsement deal?” he asks as she steps over to the edge of the mattress. “Or do you just really like logo?”

“Endorsement deal,” Ginny says sheepishly. She’s towering over him now, her hands resting on his shoulders for balance. Mike runs his eyes over her body and resists the urge to whistle again; without question, she has the most muscle tone of any girl he’s ever slept with. He's not even sure it's a thing he's into, but then he looks at her face and changes his mind.

“This too,” he tells her, plucking at the band of the sports bra. Baker grins and wiggles out of it agreeably, and just like that Mike gets his first real look at her breasts. They’re bigger than he might have guessed and _high_ , with puffy brown nipples pointed right at the ceiling. Mike leans in and presses his face between them for a second, breathing in.

“Okay,” he says quietly. She's skinny here, in the flat hollow beneath her collarbone. “Baker. Are you _sure_ you wanna sleep with me?”

“Is that a compliment?” Ginny asks, arching her back. Mike turns his head so his beard scratches her skin and she squirms, both hands coming up to clutch at his head.

“It’s a compliment,” Mike promises, pulling back so he can look at her. “Fuck. It's a compliment.”

“Is this the part where I reassure you?” she asks. With her breasts and her grin she looks achingly young. “Like, do you want me to tell you how wet I am?” She says it like she’s joking, but then she drapes herself over his shoulder and presses her mouth to his ear. “Mike. I am _really_ wet.”

Jesus _Christ_. Mike takes her out by her knees, scooping her up and tossing her onto the mattress, everything bouncing appealingly. Baker laughs her head off. She likes that, Mike notes, him throwing her around a little. Mike doesn’t hate it himself.

He climbs up onto the bed after her, snapping at the elastic on her underwear as he comes. “You got anything else you wanna add, smartass?” he asks, using his knee to knock her thighs open.

Ginny shakes her head, suddenly wide-eyed. “Nope. I’m good.”

“You sure?” Mike slides his hand down to cup her through her underwear, hard and possessive. “Because if you wanna show off how clever you are some more—” He lets go and Ginny whines, her hips coming clean off the mattress to chase his hand.

“Okay,” she pants, legs sprawled. “Okay, I’m sorry I made fun of you, can you just—”

Mike grins. “Can I just what, exactly?” he asks, reaching back down to squeeze again. This time, he can feel how damp the fabric is. Fuck, this does not feel like getting her out of his system. That is not what this feels like at _all_.

“Shit,” Baker mutters under her breath. “Okay, no, wait wait wait, c’mere.” She twists out of his grip and wraps both legs around his waist instead, tightening them like a vise to draw him in. Mike almost loses his balance, catching himself with both palms on either side of her head.

“You rang,” he laughs, leaning down so his face is hovering over hers. Ginny tilts her chin up and kisses him.

Mike freezes. He doesn't know why he’s surprised—they were making out against the wall just a second ago—but there’s something about her initiating it, her wide warm mouth and the way she wraps all four limbs around him like a climbing vine. Mike feels _very_ kissed.

“Okay,” she says after a minute. “You know what, it's possible I don't hate the beard.”

“No?” Mike asks, and is embarrassed by how transparently pleased he sounds.

“No.” Baker hauls her hips into the air using her legs around his waist as leverage, and damn, Mike bets that’s a move that hurts her younger partners a lot less. “Okay, Lawson, time to take your clothes off.”

Mike raises his eyebrows. “In a minute,” he says, both because he wants to re-establish who exactly is in charge here and because he feels the slightest, dumbest bit self-conscious all of a sudden, Ginny Baker and her twenty-three-year-old six pack. He’s slept with girls her age before, but they were groupies, not other professional athletes. He reaches for her underwear and skims it off, stroking a knuckle over the skin he uncovers.

“Jesus, Baker,” he says, opening her up and dragging his fingers through the mess he finds. “You weren’t kidding.”

“Shut up,” she says, wiggling against the mattress. She’s shaved bare like every other twenty-something Mike’s fucked in the past five years, but for some reason it feels more personal on her, how he can see every single pucker of skin. “Be nice.”

“I am nice.” Mike ducks his head down close and scraps his beard against her thigh. “I mean, it’s a wish fulfillment thing for you, I get it,” he adds, finding her clit with his finger and circling, listening for the sound of her gasp. “I have that effect on women.”

“Oh my god.” Ginny uses her knee to knock him in the shoulder. “You know what, I’m beginning to think your old ass is all talk.”

“Oh yeah?” Mike slides both palms under her hips and yanks, burying his face in her cunt. Baker gasps, then groans as he starts to lick in broad, furious stripes across her clit.

“Shit,” she whimpers, her knees thunking open against the bed. “Oh, Mike, shit.”

Mike’s trying to prove a point more than anything else, licking too hard and fast for anything much in the way of proper stimulation, but as soon as she says his name he wants to do it for real. “Here, wait,” he says, gentling his mouth. Her thighs are already shaking from the onslaught. “Hang on a sec.” He boosts her into a better position and goes again, licking more softly, rubbing his bottom lip over her clit. Baker whimpers in relief, relaxing bonelessly against the bed.

“Oh.” She reaches down to clutch at his hair, her other hand sliding in between them to feel where his tongue is working. “Oh,” she repeats in surprise, rubbing her thumb over his whiskers. "Wait. I'm gonna get you all—"

Mike is pretty sure his beard is already soaked, actually, but it doesn’t feel like the time to mention it. “Don’t worry about it,” he says instead, rubbing his chin against her deliberately. Baker moans and shoves her hips into his face, so he’s pretty sure it’s a thing she likes.

Still, after another minute she’s grabbing at his head again, her voice urgent. “No, seriously, you gotta get undressed. It feels like you’re gonna get me off and then bail.”

Mike is… a little embarrassed by how emphatically that is not his plan. “I won’t,” he promises, but Ginny’s already forcing him up by his shirt collar. “Ow, fuck, okay okay.” He stands, wiping at his face with the back of one hand. When he sees Baker staring, he grins. “What, you never sleep with a dude with a beard before?”

Ginny shakes her head. “Nope. You ever sleep with a black girl?”

Well then. “Yep,” Mike says, pausing with one knee up on the mattress. He’s not sure whether or not he should feel insulted. He’s slept with a _lot_ of women.

Baker isn't done. “Ever _date_ a black girl?”

Huh. “No,” Mike says slowly, wishing he had a different answer to offer. He wants to pass whatever kind of test this is, wants her to trust him. Most of all, he wants to know if she just tipped her hand. He’d been assuming _let’s get it out of our systems_ meant once. “Uh. You wanna talk about it?”

Baker considers that, one smooth leg swinging back and forth like a pendulum. “Not as much as I want to watch you do whatever striptease routine you were about to do,” she decides finally. “But I’m reserving the right.”

Mike nods, his heart is beating oddly fast. “Fair enough,” he says, holding her gaze for another minute before reaching back and pulling his henley up over his head. He swings it around like a lasso then tosses it at her. Ginny whoops.

“Come here,” she says, only then she's the one who flips herself over and crawls toward him, resting her dark head against his stomach as she reaches for the button on his jeans. Mike pets through her hair without quite intending to, gathering up the length of it and wrapping it loosely around his fist. “There,” Ginny announces once his zipper is down, sitting back on her haunches and looking satisfied. “Better.”

“Better?” Mike toes off his shoes and socks, watching her with interest. “Better how?”

Ginny laughs, letting her knees drift open just far enough to flash him. “Just in general. Take your pants off, old man.”

Mike rolls his eyes and obeys, shucking his jeans and stepping free. His knees are scarred and nasty from three surgeries, but at least Baker’s seen them before. Baker’s actually seen _most_ of him before, Mike realizes, thanks to the handful of times they’ve talked game strategy while he was stripped down to his compression shorts for physical therapy. It occurs to him to wonder about the specifics of those interactions, in light of recent events.

“How _long_ have you been attracted to me?” he asks, at the same time that Baker snaps her fingers and demands, “Boxers too.” Then she laughs. “What, you fishing for compliments now?”

Mike guesses not. “Boxers,” he says, hooking his thumbs under the waistband. “You got it.” His dick is still hard, at least, despite going through this whole encounter more or less untouched. It's a respectable dick, Mike thinks. Especially in a sport with so much ‘roid use.

He tosses the boxers at her like he tossed his henley and this time Ginny snatches them out of the air, grinning hugely. “This is cool,” she says before sliding her ass to the edge of the bed and reaching for him.

Mike is so distracted by her smile and her hand on his dick that he almost doesn't catch what she said. “I’m sorry. This is _cool_?”

Ginny abruptly looks defensive. “I mean, yeah, kind of. I’m playing in the majors and boning Mike Lawson.”

Mike’s eyebrows damn near hit his hairline. “You _did_ have a poster,” he accuses.

Baker shrugs. “Maybe. All I’m saying is, thirteen-year-old Ginny would be thrilled."

_Thirteen-year-old_ — Jesus fucking Christ. Mike bites back a shit-eating grin so wide and complete he thinks it’s possible his face might shatter clean off. But then Baker ducks her head, her hair falling across her face, and just like that Mike doesn’t want to rub her nose in it anymore.

“Happy to help make your hopes and dreams come true there, rook,” he says instead, trying to keep his voice casual. “Though I’m sorry to say I don’t think you're gonna be the one doing the boning.” He thrusts into her palm as he says it, and is disproportionately relieved to hear her quiet snort of laughter.

"Asshole," Ginny says, but she looks fond.

“Lay back,” Mike tells her, crowding into her space and dragging his thumb over her nipple. “I've got _dreams_ to fulfill."

Ginny wrinkles her nose. “In a minute,” she says snottily, mimicking his tone from earlier. Then she scoots her ass backwards on the mattress and promptly ducks her head.

Mike swears out loud. “ _Baker_ ,” he says, but she’s already doing it, hot wet mouth and lowered eyelashes, the soft unpracticed drag of her tongue. “You don’t have to—”

Ginny pulls off long enough to roll her eyes at him. “I know I don’t _have_ to, thanks,” she says, using her free hand to gather her hair back, and damn it all to hell that makes it even worse. Mike has had a _lot_ of blow jobs in his life—has even paid for a few—but watching Ginny Baker hold her own hair and suck his cock because she wants to is an _experience_. He has to tense every single muscle in his body so he doesn't move.

“Okay,” he says after a few minutes, reaching for her head. “Okay, enough.” She isn't even that good at it, Jesus, Mike’s been sucked by plenty of girls who are good at it. But she keeps looking up at him with those wide mischievous eyes, which means that Mike keeps thinking about the fact that she's his rookie; keeps picturing doing this in the dugout before smacking her on the ass and sending her out onto the pitch and—

“Yeah, up,” he says, covering her hand with his and more or less yanking her away. Ginny laughs, flopping back to lie on the bed.

“Condom?” she asks, but Mike’s already dropping down to his busted up knees and shoving his face back between her legs. Baker gasps, then whimpers, clutching at him.

He's _good_ at this, Mike reminds himself, closing his lips over her clit. He’s good at this and she’s Ginny Baker, the first woman in the major leagues, and apparently it's a teenage fantasy of hers to fuck him, so. Mike can make that happen for her.

He makes it happen for her. Twice.

He almost makes it happen for himself, truth be told, his dick just brushing against the hotel bedskirts and Ginny chanting his name in a quiet, hoarse voice. But he grits his teeth, and when Baker yanks him onto the bed after her second orgasm, all eager brown limbs and youthful exuberance, he somehow has yet to embarrass himself.

“Oh,” Ginny says when she realizes the state of his beard. Then she kisses him anyway.

Eventually Mike peels himself away to get a condom from his toiletry kit in the bathroom, and when he gets back Baker’s shoved the bedspread down onto the carpet, lying with one knee up on the crisp white sheets. Mike stops in his tracks for a second, letting himself stare.

Ginny pops up onto her elbows. “You’re not actually supposed to roll around on hotel comforters like that,” she explains, like possibly the linens are what got his attention and not her perfect, flawless, _naked_ body on top of them. “There’s all kinds of gross stuff on ‘em. People do...you know.” She waves her hand vaguely. “This.”

Mike grins. “You’re not in Texas anymore, superstar,” he reminds her, climbing back into bed and nosing along the underside of one soft breast. “I think they wash the blankets here.”

Ginny shrugs into the pillows. “You really want to take that chance?”

"You only live once," Mike says, swinging one leg over so he’s kneeling on either side of her body. Ginny groans like he's someone's dad embarrassing her at a party. He _likes_ her, Mike realizes suddenly. He hasn’t talked or joked around this much in bed in...maybe ever. Definitely not since Rachel. Sex is serious business to him normally—Mike believes it deserves his full and undivided attention, like a workout or an at-bat. “You are something else, you know that?” he asks, using his teeth to open the condom.

Baker peers up at him, one hand coming up to tangle in her own curly hair. “So I've been told.”

Mike raises his eyebrows. “Yeah,” he says, spitting out a sliver of cellophane. “I bet you have.”

Ginny stretches luxuriantly underneath him, looking pleased with herself. “So," she says conversationally. "You gonna start slapping my ass again after this?”

Mike pauses halfway through his task. “Um. No, probably not, rook. That would be inappropriate.” He wraps both hands around her waist and squeezes for emphasis.

“You were into it though, yeah?” she presses, reaching between them and taking over with the condom. “I was right?”

“You were right,” Mike says quietly, thrusting into her hand. He wants to be inside her like he wants to breathe. “You wanna get on top?”

Ginny shakes her head. “Nope.”

Mike raises his eyebrows. “Gonna let me do all the work, huh?” He uses one knee to push her hips open wider, bracing one elbow on the mattress beside her head. “That’s okay,” he promises, reaching down between them and lining himself up. “I don’t mind.”

“Real sweet of you,” Ginny says—or starts to, losing the rest of it in a satisfying whine as he pushes himself inside. Mike takes his time about it, both because he doesn’t want to hurt her and because he doesn’t want to come fifteen seconds in and he isn’t at all sure he’s not about to. Instead he drops his head into the crook of her shoulder and concentrates, Ginny’s fingertips feather-light at the back of his neck.

“You good?” he asks as he bottoms out inside her, pulling back to get a better look at her face. Ginny nods, but she’s worrying her bottom lip between her teeth in a way that’s got Mike pausing, pulling a strand of her hair out of his mouth and tucking it back behind her ear where it belongs. “So what about you?” he asks, conversational. “You gonna start slapping _my_ ass starting tomorrow?”

He feels her laugh all over his body. “I _might_ ,” she says, shifting underneath him. “We’ll see.” She wiggles for a minute longer, brow furrowed, her legs coming up around his hips. “Okay,” she says finally, lifting her face to kiss him. “Thank you. You can move now.”

“Roger that,” Mike says, starting them out with a slow, careful rhythm and reaching down for her clit. She’s _very_ tight. Mike’s average sized, too, so he knows it's not him—it occurs to him to wonder how recently she's done this, how often. Twenty-three is mind-bendingly young.

She squirms underneath him, arching up into his touch. “Yeah,” she says breathlessly, and it takes Mike two full seconds to recognize it as praise.

“‘Yeah’, huh?” he asks, grinning. Damn, he’s barely even done anything yet. “Don’t get too excited, Baker. You ain't seen nothing yet.” Ginny half-laughs, half-moans, tossing her curly head on the pillow.

“Feel good?” Mike asks. He realizes, not a little uncomfortably, that he’s aiming to be the best she’s ever had. “Like that? Or harder?”

“Harder,” Baker says quietly, and fuck, it really shouldn't be so sexy considering Mike literally just asked. He goes harder, taking his hand off her clit to lift her ass up a smidge. Baker gasps, and yeah, okay, that's the angle right there.

“You're so tight,” he tells her, because that's what he always always says to women in bed. In this particular case it also happens to be true. “You feel so good.” Ginny tosses her head on the pillow again, her eyes screwed shut, and wait, fuck, what the hell is Mike doing using canned lines on Ginny-fucking-Baker?

He snaps his jaw shut, suddenly at a total loss for what to say to her, but then that feels weird and unnatural too—the hermetically sealed silence of the hotel room, how loud his own breathing sounds. After a moment Ginny’s eyes blink open, her eyebrows knitting together slightly as she focuses. “You okay?”

Crap. “Are you kidding?” Mike asks, slipping his thumb into her mouth and dragging the pad of it along the sharp cliff of her bottom teeth. “I don’t know about you, but I’m living my best life here, Baker.”

Ginny smiles at that, real and open. The sight of it reaches into Mike chest and twists. “Okaaaay,” she says, rolling her hips hard and dirty underneath him. “Well then…?”

Mike stares for half a second before it occurs to him she means _keep talking_ ; then he stares for half a second more. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters finally, huffing a quiet breath against her skin. Well, in for a penny. He’ll tell her whatever the hell she wants to hear. “Do you have any idea how hot you are?” he asks, hitching her closer. Then, quietly, because it’s not like it isn’t true: “You’re amazing, Baker. You’re so fucking good.”

Ginny smirks at that, a little indulgently, and Mike is hit with the inherent foolishness of telling a girl thirteen years his junior she’s hot and amazing. He bites her shoulder to cover his embarrassment.

“Touch yourself,” he continues, because he doesn’t know how much longer he can last in this position, how tight she is and how she keeps trying to use his body for leverage. His knees are starting to ache. “C’mon, Baker. Wanna see you come again.”

“What, can’t get me there on your own?” she asks, but then she does it anyway, reaching down between them with quick strong fingers. Her mouth drops open immediately. “Oh, Mike, shit.”

Fuck, she has gotta stop saying his name like that. “That’s it,” he tells her, fucking her harder. “C’mon, Baker, let me see.” He’s pretty sure she’s close. Her face has gone tense and sweetly focused, eyes closed and brow knit. Jesus _Christ_ , she’s beautiful, Mike lets himself think, and has to suck down an embarrassingly large gulp of air.

“Don’t stop,” Ginny murmurs hoarsely, and God, Mike is never, ever going to be able to forget how she sounds right now. He wants to kiss her, but he also doesn’t want to distract her from what her body is doing, how fixated she is on what’s happening between her legs. He leans in closer instead, his forehead just barely touching hers.

“That’s it,” he says, and is surprised when Ginny opens her eyes to look at him. She whimpers, close and quiet and right in his fucking face, and something in Mike just snaps. “Jesus, Ginny,” he hears himself say, and God, he needs to stop talking, he needs to stop talking _right now_. “Just like that, honey, you’re fucking perfect, you’re the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen—”

Ginny goes wide-eyed. “Mike,” she whispers. “Fuck, Mike, I’m gonna come.”

“Yeah you are,” he promises, fucking into her even harder—ignoring the way his knees are singing, the twinge in his back, because here’s Ginny Baker panting her way through an orgasm underneath him and Mike is going to be damn sure she knows who gave it to her. He squeezes her ass hard and rhythmic while it happens, talking quiet nonsense in her ear the whole time. He's fully aware that he’s coaching her through this like they're out on the mound at the damn Petco, and he has no idea how to make himself stop.

Not that Baker seems to mind, keening into his shoulder as he wrings the last of it out of her. When she’s finished she collapses bonelessly back onto the pillows, pushes her hair out of her face—and _laughs_. “Wow,” she says, muscling her arms hard around his neck and kissing him, biting sloppily at his tongue and bottom lip. “Okay. Wow. _Hi_.”

Mike purposely doesn’t say it back to her this time. “Good?” he asks instead, though he thinks it’s already pretty obvious he did all right by her. It’s possible he’s feeling a little bit smug.

“Um,” Ginny says—looking almost shy for a moment, rubbing the bottom of her foot along the back of his calf. “Yeah. Yes.”

“Good,” Mike says, planting a kiss on her mouth like punctuation. He’d paused his thrusts to give her a break, but it’s starting to wear on him now, his balls drawn up tight and his thighs shaking. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind—”

Baker grins at that, stretching both arms up under above her head and sliding them under the pillow. “I don’t mind,” she says lazily, butterflying her legs out, looking for all the world like she’s settling in to watch. Then her face changes and she holds up a hand. “Wait, hang on, pull out for a sec.”

Mike does, his dick cold in the hotel's over-air conditioned room. “Baker,” he starts, but she’s already nudging at him with one knee, creating enough space to push herself up on her elbows and—roll over onto her stomach. “ _Baker_ ,” Mike repeats, his mouth going dry.

Ginny looks pretty damn pleased with herself. “I know you like my ass,” she says, twisting around to grin at him over her shoulder. She arranges herself officiously, pulling her knees up underneath her and pillowing her head on her folded arms before looking up at him expectantly. “Well?”

Mike huffs out a laugh, running a hand down her spine. “I do,” he says. What he really likes is how confident she looks right now, like she’s the only girl in the world who’s ever rolled over for him, like she’s sure she’s blowing his mind. She kind of is.

“Not like, _in_ my ass,” Ginny adds, fisting a hand in her own hair. “Just to clarify.”

Mike laughs for real then, lifting her curls out of the way to kiss the nape of her neck. “Not in your ass,” he confirms. Ginny rubs her cheek against the pillow, kittenish, watching him out of the corner of one eye.

She whimpers a bit as he pushes himself back inside her—the new angle, Mike guesses, not to mention how swollen and fucked out she already is. Realistically this is going to be over in two seconds but Mike reaches around for her clit anyway, wanting to make it easier on her. The sound she lets out when he finds it is an entirely different kind of whine.

“Baker,” Mike groans into the seashell spiral of her ear. His brain is shorting out a little now, her long back and the trumpet flare of her hipbones, the exaggerated curve of her ass. She looks like a cartoon drawing of a woman. She looks like exactly nobody Mike has ever seen. “Baker, can you come again?”

Ginny’s hips stutter uncertainly. “I don't know,” she says, mostly into the pillows. “Maybe? I don't—”

“Okay,” Mike says uselessly, still rubbing; he's thrusting and Baker is moaning and she smells like sex and sweat and coconuts and just like that Mike is coming and coming, balls deep in the first female player in the history of the major leagues, and the only clear thought in his head as it's happening is how much trouble he’s in, because there's no way he's ever, ever getting her out of his system after this.

“Jesus _Christ_ , Baker,” he says when he's finished, dropping his weight on her for half a second before boosting himself back up on his elbows. He's fully expecting her to laugh but instead she shoves her hips back against him, a blatant demand that's frankly uncomfortable for how soon it is.

“Yeah,” she gasps, glancing over her shoulder and looking frantic. “Yeah, the answer is yeah, I think I can come again if you— _please_.”

Mike pleases. He pulls out and gets her off one more time with his fingers, body curled behind hers like a tablespoon and mouth fused to the delicate skin behind her ear. Ginny whines about it, low and throaty and hot like a house on fire; she's louder when Mike’s not looking at her face, though not by much. Afterwards she reaches back to wrap a hand around the base of his skull, her palm warm and damp.

“Well. You’re good at that,” she announces. Her voice is almost completely shot.

Mike grins. “Yeah I am. I blew your fucking _mind_ , rookie.” 

“You blew nothing,” Ginny says, but she’s still touching him, her nails scritching lightly through the hair at the back of his neck. For a second Mike closes his eyes.

“You want food?” he asks. He wants an excuse to keep her here, but he also wants to keep this from getting awkward. He will kill himself if he fucks up her pitching.

“Sure.” She gives his hair one last tug before rolling free in search of the room service menu. Mike reaches for the hotel phone and tries not to stare too obviously, the sheer improbability of her slim brown body existing in his room. When she climbs back into bed she doesn’t bother to grab the sheets or even a single item of clothing, folding her legs up under her and opening the menu to Mains. “It’s my cheat day,” she says, looking up at him. “So I’m gonna order at least two.”

Mike laughs. “Have at it,” he says expansively, and Ginny winks and clucks her tongue. She winks like a ballplayer, cocky and matter-of-fact, like possibly she’s the one who fucked Mike through the mattress instead of the other way around. He guesses she kind of did, metaphorically speaking. He feels pretty dazed.

“You’re gonna have to come over here and cuddle me afterwards,” he tells her, setting the receiver on his chest and folding both arms behind his head. “Just warning you. Otherwise I cry.”

“I have that effect on men,” Baker says, but she inches a little closer anyway, her knees just brushing against Mike’s side. “Here.” She leans over to show him the menu like they’re looking at batting stats, her mop of curls falling across her face. “Pick something.”

Mike shakes his head, reaching around to rub his hand up her warm spine; Ginny makes a soft sound when he touches her. “Nah, rookie," he says, thumb circling. "You’re the boss.”

**Author's Note:**

> Now with a sequel: [Catching nothing all the time](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8912380).


End file.
